"It's put the monsters into a real tizzy, I can tell you," volunteered the Kaimeera from behind them. "I heard you've been ordering three different breakfasts every day just to throw off the kitchen staff."
"Your rule is so…so insane, my lord," said Ashwing. The tip of her tongue trailed over her full lips. "No one knows what to do."
"Huh," said Freetrick. "Well, uh…good?"
She walked, looking at him as if she expected him to say something. Then Ashwing shot a look at the Kaimeera, inhaled, cleavage expanding dangerously, and said, "My lord Feerborg. Forgive me, but it is only…the way you swept aside all we know, the very foundations of our culture…it is at once forceful and subtle and," she swayed into him, "incredibly erotic."
Freetrick glanced again at Bloodbyrn, who was now looking over her shoulder too. While the ogres were still grinning tuskily, Bloodbyrn's expression somehow managed to be completely blank while at the same time communicating a complex message: "you are the one with the subtle wit, my lord, You may handle this problem. And if you do not, I will make your life miserable before, eventually, I end it. Does my lord understand?"
Freetrick sped up a little. "Well, thank you," he said to Ashwing, "I'm glad you liked it."
"It was spectacular." Ashwing matched his pace, the little barbed chains of her skirts clattering against his armored thigh. Freetrick looked down and sighed.
"Oh yes, if one appreciates spectacle."
Freetrick looked away from Ashwing's cleavage and saw Bloodbyrn's. Then he saw an incoming purple blur. Then sparks.
"Ow!"
Bloodbyrn shook out her hand. There was a sound like two sides of beef smacking into each other as one of the ogres applauded. "I suppose spectacle depends on one's taste," she said, as if she had not just given her fiancé a tooth-cracking slap, "I thought my lord's performance at the Villainous Council to be foolish in the extreme."
"I agree entirely, it is all a matter of taste" said Ashwing. They had all stopped walking while Freetrick massaged his jaw, and Ashwing now took the opportunity to press herself against Freetrick's side. The Monster Killer looked at them with obvious disgust. "Some still enjoy the sadomasochistic sexual dynamic, for example, whereas others find it cliché and tiresome." She reached up to stroke Freetrick's swollen cheek. The shining black links of her slave chain dangled from it. "What is the phrase the Rationalists use when they wish express their concern over their love's grievous injuries?"
"Are you okay," said the Kaimeera, "honey?"
"Are you okay, honey?" Ashwing continued to stroke, although her hand had dropped to the nape of his neck. She smelled like fire, and cooked meat.
"Well," Bloodbyrn grabbed his wrist, "what some people call cliché, I am sure others would call tradition." She tugged on the arm, "and they would appreciate it for the high art that it is! Come on, my lord." She jerked again and nearly separated Freetrick's shoulder.
Freetrick stumbled and followed, Ashwing and the sardonic-looking Kaimeera trailing behind.
"Hm," Ashwing smiled up at Freetrick, "why does my lord allow this little…Sangboise to abuse her so? His is the power, the strength, the dark glory. But a word from his lips will cause a thousand furies to descend upon his…current fiancée and tear her bodily apart."
"Thank you, Ashwing," Bloodbyrn snarled, "but my lord has more important things to concern himself with than your pathetic attempts to foster intrigue."
"That-t's true," Freetrick stammered. Bloodbyrn was moving very fast. "And I don't want to kill her."
Bloodbyrn snorted.
"But I would like to be treated like an adult," Freetrick said, trying to stop, "for truth's sake stop yanking on me, Bloodbyrn."
She flung down his hand and turned on him. "An adult, an adult? You are the Ultimate Fiend! Must I remind you that we now travel to face your brother who this morning attempted to kill you, after a council session where, let me ensure my lord that he did not do anything spectacular with the exception of the spectacular fool he made of himself?"
"No," said Freetrick, "but—"
"But?!" The ogres shared an uncomfortable look as Bloodbyrn rose up on her toes and grasped Freetrick about the throat. "You dare say 'but' to me?" She pulled hard downward. Freetrick gasped and fell with a clang to his armored knees.
Bloodbyrn cast a razor grin at Ashwing over his shoulder. "My lord's behavior is intolerable. He will be punished most severely. Lady Ashwing," her eyes were wild, her smile so wide her molars showed, "you may watch."
"I am sure my lord would prefer that I interfere," Freetrick twisted around to see Ashwing stepping forward. A dark halo shimmered above her head.
"Whoa, wait."
"What my lord prefers matters less than what is good for him." Bloodbyrn straightened, flicked her wrist, and was suddenly holding her wicked little athame, already dripping with hot blood. "And it is important today that he learn a lesson in forbearance." She pulled the broad, black blade across the air in front of her, leaving an arc of little drops of blood sparking and smoking behind it. Behind her, the ogres shifted, planting their feet farther apart. "Shall you be the object of the lesson, Lady Ashwing?"
"Stop!" Freetrick said again, but Bloodbyrn, without looking away from Ashwing's face, reached down and struck him across the forehead.
"Do not think your punishment is prevented, my lord," she growled, "only postponed until I can deal with this…little problem."
"Little, yes," Ashwing agreed, "tiny compared to my lord's problem." She looked into Freetrick's eyes. "He is preparing to un-marry a foreign bitch who wants to torture and kill him."
Bloodbyrn laughed. "And what would you give him, Ashwing? Flowers and poetry? This is Skrea, and he is the King of Evil. My lord requires a woman of strength and cruelty to stand by his side."
"With her athame buried in his kidney, no doubt," Ashwing said.
"All right," said Freetrick, "enough. He pushed back from Bloodbyrn's hand when it came out to swat his head. "Bloodbyrn, stop this. Ashwing, I don't want—"
"What my lord? You don't want to be dragged to your knees by this little foreign viper? Then why do you not step away from her?" The slave chain dangled as she held out her hands.
"You know what?" said Freetrick, "that would be good idea. Oof" Dodging another swat from Bloodbyrn, Freetrick rolled back onto his feet and straightened. Shades of gara practice. If someone had told him four weeks ago that he'd be using Love-wielder martial dance steps to fend off the attacks of a Skrean despotess, he would have said…The inane thought flitted through his head: yay globalization!
"My lord—" Bloodbyrn hissed, but Freetrick cut her off.
"My lord what?" said Freetrick. "My lord is being stupid? My lord should listen to Bloodbyrn? Strike it, Bloodbyrn, you just said you were going to torture me. And you haven't said you're not going to kill me. Why in the name of truth should I listen to anything you say?"
"Because she is planning to kill you!" Bloodbyrn's eyes had not left Ashwing. The tip of her athame dripped, and the drops of blood moved silently through the air to take their place in the spell floating before her. Freetrick had no idea what she planned to do with the drops of blood she had suspended in the air, and didn't want to find out.
"And that makes you jealous, huh?" Freetrick took another step away.
"Excellent, my lord," cried Ashwing. "Now come to me!" Very slowly, Ashwing was edging forward and sideways, always keeping her outstretched left hand between herself and Bloodbyrn. Ashwing lifted her right hand, the one attached by the chain to her slave. The chain spooled slowly down the arm to puddle on the floor
"No way!" Freetrick said, "you're planning to kill me too!"
"On the contrary, my lord. I plan to save you." She reached out a hand toward him, almost close enough to touch his shoulder.
"If my lord takes the hand of that puffed-up harridan," Bloodbyrn said, teeth clenched and blood still dripping sideways from her athame, "he will deserve all the events that follow." The ogres growled be
hind her.
"You know her, my lord. You know what faction she represents," Ashwing's eyes burned over a false, languid smile. "Join me, my lord, and together we will forge a grand new path for Skrea."
Ashwing pressed herself against his arm, and her face was suddenly a finger's width from his.
All Freetrick would have to do was open his mouth…
"Take me here," said Ashwing, "before these witnesses, and that poisonous little toad will have no recourse."
Freetrick had just enough time to register, oh my. A choice. And this is probably an important one, before Ashwing had wrapped one of her legs around his, and Freetrick suddenly remembered the parking lot at Eldritch college, the ogre carriage, meeting Bloodbyrn for the first time. With an effort, Freetrick wrenched himself away from her.
"Ashwing," he said, "I can't."
"You can," she said, "you can my lord!"
And there was the choice. Freetrick shook his head. "I'm sorry. But maybe—"
Ashwing put her hand to his chest and shoved. Freetrick fell backward, caught himself, then toppled to the floor as Ashwing's foot swept his legs out from under him. Oh, he thought, strike me out, I think that was the wrong choice.
Freetrick shook his head and looked up to see Ashwing standing over him, a statue in onyx and alabaster to the goddess of sex and fury. Her words, though, were calm. "I am so sorry to hear that, my lord." Her hair suddenly billowed upward in a gust of cold air. Black vapor bloomed over the lady's head as her fingers thrust down at him. "Goodbye."
"Oh." Freetrick spoke it out loud now, "oh strike me—"
There was a hungry zzzziip sound as a tiny red mote tore through the air at Ashwing. The black clouds over her head roiled as she smacked the droplet of blood aside. "Meddling bitch!" she snarled as she gestured with her other hand. Freetrick felt the floor tremble, but another red missile buried itself in the necromancer's mist growing around Ashwing's body.
Snarling, the Skrean princess hurled the burning blood to the floor. "You think to defeat me with your Blood-magic?" The air rippled with power and a black flame sprang up in Ashwing's cupped palm. "This is not the blood-god's nation, my dear, and it never will be." Waves of cold emanated from Ashwing was she raised her black-burning arms. "The first thing I shall do as First Concubine is throw you Leeches and your god back into the swamps from which you crawled. And tell your monsters to stand down, dear. The Kaimeera will rip them to shreds and digest their brains."
"Not something I look forward to," mumbled the Kaimeera.
"Wait a second…" Freetrick began to haul himself to his feet. "Ashwing, Bloodbyrn---"
"Not now, my lord!" Both women hissed.
"Hey," Freetrick stepped deliberately between them. "I am not going to let you---"
"Oh twisting clouds above me," Ashwing swore. "You, pet." She darted a look back at the Monster Killer. She jingled the chain. "Remove the Ultimate Fiend from my way."
The girl behind her emerged from the shadows, red crystal light glinting on the chains around her, a smile of pure elation on her face.
"Excuse the audacity for daring to attack you, my lord," Ashwing said as the chain unreeled from her wrist. It slid in loops across the ground as the Monster Killer drew her hands apart. "Of course I expect you will kill my pet in recompense, but I trust in time you will come to see why I had to make this sacrifice."
"What---?" Freetrick managed, before the Monster Killer was on him.
She did move fast.
Finger-thick chain smacked into Freetrick the Monster Killer backhanded him across the face, and before he could react the black links had looped around his wrist and pulled him out from between the two girls.
Freetrick had no time to think. Instinct alone commanded him to grab the chain with his left hand and yank it toward him. The Monster Killer began to overbalance, but midway down, her fall became a lunge that brought her hands to his face.
Freetrick bellowed as her short, sharp fingernails gouged across his cheeks. Instinct brought up his hands to shield his eyes, and when the chain still looped around his right hand jingled, he realized…
Freetrick grabbed the chain and jerked his hand sideways. The hands left his face. Freetrick felt a moment of triumph, but then, as he hauled the Monster Girl away from him, Freetrick saw her face.
Her eyes were silver, twisted in anger and hatred. The muscles around her face and throat tensed as if to scream, but her jaws remained locked together.
Freetrick had time for two simultaneous realizations:
1. That chain is controlling her somehow
and
2. She really wants to striking kill me
And then she had twisted herself out of the loop of chain that held her.
The Monster Killer was fast. Faster than any non-magical thing Freetrick had seen. He had no time to complete his thoughts or to even move before she was abruptly behind him.
And the finger-thick chain snapped around his windpipe.
Then there was only time to think:
The chain is a work of necromancy.
Freetrick put his hand to the black chain, and hoped he was right.
There was a spark and a bloom of darkness in his eyes. Then the loop of chain around his wrist snapped taught as the chain around his throat sagged.
Freetrick bent over, coughing. As his eyes refocused, he saw the whorls of black metal around him tightening, un-looping themselves. They were wrapping around his arm, retracting into a simple leash, which now pulled tight around the wrists and neck of the Monster Killer. Who slumped, and hung her head as if her last hope for life had been taken from her.
Freetrick raised a hand to the girl, but then blinked as something whizzed over him.
He whipped around to see the blood drop rush toward Ashwing, and the tentacular extension of Ashwing's necromancer's mist that flicked up to block it. The sizzling red spot turned in the air, veering like an angry hornet, leaving a smoking trail that wound around the necromancer's body as she twisted about in her attempts to evade it.
Hissing with anger and concentration, Ashwing thrust out her hands, and snatched the droplet out of the air. Black vapor exploded from between her fingers, and Bloodbyrn gasped as if in pain. When Ashwing opened her hand, the fingers moved stiffly, and the skin on her palm was livid and necrotic, as if with frostbite.
"You'll pay for that," Ashwing snarled, a huge column of mist curling over her head like a scorpion's stinger. "A pound of Sagboise flesh for this ounce of Skrean's."
"No!" Shouted Freetrick, "Ashwing, stop!"
"Again?" Ashwing's voice rose as she directed it at Bloodbyrn. "It seems you still have my lord's heart. Shall I give him yours?" Freetrick saw the black halo around her flare and extend, and there was a sharp cry from his fiancée. "That one almost got through, didn't it, Bloodbyrn? When the power in your blood runs out," Her voice had turned cold and slow, as content and deadly as a sleepy crocodile. "I shall separate your ribcage."
"Bloodbyrn!" called Freetrick, tugging the re bound slave girl toward the duelists, "you have to run! I'll…I'll---"
"You will what?" laughed Ashwing. "Dark and degenerate darling man, I happen to know that this day you have killed no more than a single ogre, and a rat with your breakfast. Even with my pet's life-energy, you will be no match for me, for I have feasted upon the deaths of thirteen slaves---Ha!" She snarled as she batted away another volley from Bloodbyrn. "You cannot hope to match me energy for energy. What would a Rationalist say, Kaimeera?"
"You're struck-out, lady."
"Bloodbyrn! I'll protect you!" Freetrick raised his hands and reached for the power even as his brain processed 'lady'?
Ashwing shrieked as the Kaimeera pounced on her.
"Fiend! Take the death!" It cried as it bore Ashwing to the ground at Freetrick's feet.
"No!" cried Freetrick, but the enormous round paws were already on her, and her head was already in the monster's mouth. Black mist seethed upward, slicing into the monster's flesh.
The monster would be as helpless as the slave girl against necromancy. Ashwing would kill it, easily. Instantly.
Ashwing had more energy than Freetrick did, but his head wasn't being squeezed between the bone-crushing teeth of a monster. He only needed to hold her for a moment.
Freetrick threw his own necromancer's mist over hers…pressed down…the Kaimeera bit…
There was not even time for Ashwing to scream before her skull cracked. Her body twitched.
And a torrent of power slammed into Freetrick. The death energy nearly knocked him out. It terrified Freetrick, how good the death felt.
Freetrick looked up to see the light crystals growing from the wall glow brighter, then dim. In the sharp, red-shot shadows they cast, Freetrick could see the Kaimeera crouched over the would-be seductress, its claws digging into her shoulders, its mouth bloody, its eyes shut tight. His blood still racing from the death energy, Freetrick could feel necromancy working inside the Kaimeera. There was a spell inside the monster, siphoning energy from the death to power something complex, subtle, and dark.
The Kaimeera shuddered. Every muscle in its tawny body tensed, and it trembled, as if under terrible internal pressure. Mouth still shut, it made a sound like someone trying to scream past a gag.
"Oh!" Freetrick gasped, "Oh Words, oh True Words." Automatically, he reached out toward the Kaimeera's bloodstained muzzle.
"Careful, my lord," there was a splash behind him as Bloodbyrn stepped through Ashwing's blood toward him. "Do not reach too---"
A yellow eye snapped open. The jaws gaped, and blood ran from rows of triangular teeth. For a moment, the monster's body tensed, and Freetrick was sure—absolutely positive—it was about to leap onto him and rip off his head. He flinched back, the beginnings of a scream on his lips, but the monster did not lunge forward.
Instead, from the depths of that stinking pit, someone giggled. "It said I owed it a liver."
Freetrick's scream died, overwhelmed by disgust. He scrabbled frantically backward as the voice called out from the Kaimeera's throat. "Wait, my lord! Oh my lord Feerborg! Oh Tempest protect me! Lord Feerborg please listen! I have something I must tell you!"
The Kingdoms of Evil Page 32